A youth soccer coach who police say is a “person of interest” in the death of a 13-year-old Los Angeles boy has been taken into custody and charged with sexual assault in an unrelated incident, authorities say.
Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, who coaches soccer at Whitsell Park, in North Hollywood, was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on Wednesday. The same day, LAPD detectives working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered Oscar Omar Hernandez’s body along a desolate stretch of Ventura County.
LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detectives made the arrest, which they say is connected to a 2024 sexual assault involving another alleged victim.
Hernandez’s family reported the teen missing on Sunday, March 30th, after he failed to return home from visiting Garcia Aquino at the man’s Lancaster residence.
The teen, who lived in Sun Valley, had taken a train to the Antelope Valley the day before he was reported missing. When the boy’s brother tried to phone him later that day, the coach answered the boy’s cellphone and said the boy was busy and could not talk. According to the family and investigators, Daniel Hernandez, the boy’s father, later called the coach and insisted he drop the teen off near the family’s home.
On the day after the boy was reported missing, investigators began tracing the movements of the coach and the boy after he left his San Fernando Valley home.
Authorities also discovered that Garcia Aquino had been investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last year for allegations of sexual assault.
Last Wednesday, as investigators searched for the teenager, Garcia Aquino was charged with assault with intent to commit rape in connection with a Feb. 22, 2024 incident in which he allegedly “took advantage of a position of trust and confidence in committing the assault, “ according to criminal records filed in court. Garcia Aquino missed an arraignment scheduled for Monday.
It is unclear why the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office did not charge him earlier.
Multiple law enfcorcement sources who said they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case said that Garcia Aquino was an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.
Garcia Aquino was also the subject of an LAPD investigation into sexual assault of a minor in 2022 but was never charged because at that point the alleged victim declined to testify against him, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
After the boy’s disappearance, investigators using data from cellular devices, cellphone towers, and other tracking systems determined that the suspect visited the Oxnard area near McGrath State Beach and the Santa Clara River, according to law enforcement sources, not authorized to discuss the probe. A foot search on by LAPD investigators and the FBI agents led to the discovery of the boy’s body alongside North Harbor Boulevard north of West Gonzales Road. Investigators did not specify the cause of death.
On Thursday, the family of the boy held a vigil where his body was discovered. “We had that person at our home,” his sister Alejandra told KTLA through a translator. “He even helped us look for Oscar.”
Gladys Bautista, the boy’s mother, wore a soccer jersey and said her son “didn’t need to be treated like an animal. That was my son,” she said in Spanish.
